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Château Coutet 1989

I think it has been a little while since a Sauternes came to the fore of my Weekend Wine candidates, but this 1989 from Château Coutet offered insurmountable competition to other hopefuls. No surprise there, perhaps? After all, this is a leading château in the Barsac appellation, the wines of which I have long admired, and 1989 was a great vintage for the style. Indeed, after just one sip from the first glass I poured I knew it was the 1989 Château Coutet that would be appearing on these pages this week.

The 1989 vintage in Bordeaux began in dramatic style with an early budbreak in late March, de rigueur for the region these days, but back in the 1980s this was an extraordinary event. An early harvest was predicted, although drearily cool and wet weather in April soon tempered this early enthusiasm. And while the temperatures were warm and downright scorching in May and June, this heralded stormy conditions in July continuing into August, and a number of vineyards in Sauternes and Barsac suffered hail damage.

Some sense of stability returned thereafter, with the late-summer weather both dry and warm, these benevolent conditions persisting on through autumn and into harvest time. After this long period of warm weather the fruit was rich and ripe, but as Sauternes savants will know such dry conditions do not help the development of botrytis.

As a consequence the picking was long, drawn out and by necessity meticulous, harvesting the tiny quantities of botrytised fruit as the fruit reluctantly succumbed, sometimes selecting individual berries, with each pass. The end results, however, were magnificent, immediately catapulting 1989 into contention as one of the best Sauternes vintages of the 1980s, alongside 1988 and the superlative 1986 vintages.

Château Coutet 1989

The quality of wines coming out of Château Coutet was bolstered during the 1980s following the acquisition of the estate by the Baly family, specifically Marcel Baly, in 1977. He passed the property on to his two sons, Dominique and Philippe. They supervised extensive replanting during the early years of their tenure, followed by significant upgrades in the cellars, and it was during the next decade that these efforts began to pay dividends. I have long regarded their 1989 as a benchmark for the property, indicating what the Coutet vineyard, which sits just down the slope from Château Climens, was truly capable of. The wines today remain tip-top, by the way.

As an aside, before coming to my notes on the wine itself, the 1989 vintage provided a lot of useful drinking when I was first exploring Bordeaux, many years ago. Less exalted than 1990, the prices remained favourable for years afterwards, especially for the sweet wines, and quite a few wines from this vintage found their way into my cellar in those early days (and believe it or not this is one of them). So it was quite a formative vintage for me. My cellar records prior to 2005 are not sufficiently complete to tell me exactly how long I have been sitting on this particular bottle, but it seems to be measured in decades rather than years.

The cork slipped from the neck of the 1989 Château Coutet without difficulty, and the wine released is rich and evidently mature (or maturing, at least), with shimmering red tinges to the deep golden hue. Despite the story of the harvest, which brought in  botrytised grapes in dribs and drabs, the aromatic profile is laden with nobly rotten complexity, the sweetly caramelised and toasted fruits dressed with the intense liquorice and black tea leaf notes of botrytis. There follows beautiful poise and intensity on the palate, and it is still showing an impressive sweetness for its 35 years. It maintains a fabulously sinewy and toothsome presence through the middle, with more dark aromas of coffee bean, tea leaf and smoke, all with an remarkably intense, firm and bright structure. And, of course, it has remarkable length. This is a brilliant wine for drinking now, but it has fabulous potential still; I can see it still showing well another 35 years from now, and maybe another 35 years after that. The alcohol on the label is 13.5%. 97/100 (1/7/24)

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